House to Home

Who is your landlord? Is she the crazy cat lady in the apartment on the first floor? Is he a grumpy old man? Is it a jovial, young entrepreneur? Is it a management company? Or maybe you are thinking about becoming a landlord—after all real estate is a great investment. What kind of landlord do you want to be?

While the personality of a landlord, of course, affects their overall demeanor. Have you considered what it would be like to be a landlord? Think about it—if your phone rang constantly at every hour of the day; while you were at your day job, while you were on that first date, while you were on vacation… Trust us, you don’t simply sit back and wait for your tenants rent money to roll in; there is a lot of work and heartache involved. If you don’t trust us, just check out some of these previous landlord’s stories.

It’s not just you – American’s today are spending far more of their incomes on rent than ever before, according to a recent Washington Post article. The article details the drastic changes for renters that have transpired over the last few decades, and the predictions for future renters.

When it comes to answering the question of why our rental cost is so high, the answers are in a variety of places.

Location – Kind of like the old real estate adage, the amount of people who desire to live in a few locations (that are already heavily populated), for example: New York City, Los Angeles and Washington D.C., keeps growing. These places are go-tos for many new college grads chasing a career dream, but often, there are too many renters and not enough rental property.

Inconsistency – It’s no secret that wages have been pretty stagnant in the U.S. for the past few years. But meanwhile, the cost of living has continued to increase (rent included), making it harder for renters to afford the same apartments.

Lack of expansion – For whatever reason – cost, zoning laws, lack of space – rental supply has not been able to match rental demand for some time.

In an economy where nearly half of all renters spend more than 30% of their incomes on housing (30% is widely thought of as the cut off for affordability), we may begin to see a rise in homeownership and a decline in renting soon.

THIRTY PERCENT – that’s the amount of your monthly income you can expect to pay for rent throughout the US currently. But it gets worse, in some historically higher markets, such as Los Angeles, San Jose, Miami and San Francisco, renters are forking over as much as 40% of their monthly income to landlords. While these markets have almost always been considered pricey by most, the 40% percent is a 10% point jump up from the usual rate.

But while circumstances are looking bleak for renters, homeowners are experiencing something entirely different. In fact, homeowners, overall, are spending only an average of 15.1% of their monthly income on their mortgage payment. This is a significantly lower number than before the real estate bubble (and the consequences thereof), when homeowners were spending around 21.3% of their monthly income on their mortgage payment.

While some fear that mortgage rates will soon rise, thus offsetting this large gap, according to Zillow’s quarterly report, even if rates were to rise to 6%, homeowners in most areas would still be spending less than 30% of their monthly incomes on their mortgage payments.

According to a recent study by Zillow, “rental affordability is as bad as it’s ever been.” The Zillow study looked at top metro areas and analyzed the percentage of monthly income that the residents spent on renting compared to on mortgages. The study analyzed metro areas including: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Portland and Pittsburgh. They also analyzed the percentages for the entire country.

The results are interesting to say the least. Overall, in the fourth quarter of 2014, Americans spent 30.1% of their monthly incomes renting, while they spent only 15.3% of their monthly incomes on their mortgage payment. The results for individual metro areas parallel the findings of the nationwide analysis. In fact, there is only one metro area in which the residents pay a higher percentage of their monthly income for a mortgage payment than for rent – that area is San Jose, CA – and the difference is .01%.

According to Zillow’s Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries, "as the economy continues to improve, more Americans are slowly moving off of their buddies' couches and out of their parents' basements into homes of their own, first likely as renters and then eventually as home buyers.”

The drastic rise of rental costs, coupled with the decline of mortgage rates has industry professionals believing that 2015 will be the year that prompts the millennials to venture down the path of home ownership and becoming first time home buyers.

The National Housing Survey hit two all-time high numbers recently: individuals expecting improvement of their financial situation in 2015 jumped to 48%, while those reporting a significantly higher household income grew to 29%. Both of these numbers lead industry experts to believe that 2015 will be the year for a significant housing boom.

In addition to these noteworthy numbers, the amount of people who say, should they move, they would buy rather than rent, increased to 66% – the first bump since September.

Doug Duncan, the senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae said that, “consumers are more optimistic about the environment for both buying and for selling a home today.”

He also noted that the increase in people saying they would opt to buy rather than rent, comes on the heels of a three-month rent-favoring trend.